Tiger Woods' 115th Dream

As mentioned earlier, I finally got out to see I'm Not There last night. I love Dylan. He's brilliant and fascinating and confusing. Intentionally confusing, which is one of the things that makes his character so interesting. Dylan as poet and singer and shape-shifter and jester, liar and cad, artist and Rock Star.

One of the best scenes in the movie centers on Dylan as a moving target for journalists, circa 1965. His Judas period. The actual footage from this time was used heavily in the documentary "No Direction Home", and is nothing short of hilarious. In one corner, you have an exhausted, overwhelmed Dylan. In the other, rows of journalists, straight men one and all, even the women.

"How many protest singers would you say there are?"

"136," Dylan says.

And they scribble away.

The scene's climax is set to Dylan's "Ballad of a Thin Man." Because something's happening here, but you don't know what it is. Do you, Mr. Jones?

How strange it must be to have your ever word analyzed. To have ever utterance parsed for deeper, cosmic meaning. No wonder Dylan's always been the way Dylan is. The mystery is half the fun. We don't really NEED to know everything. Eventually, we'll have no imaginations at all. Dylan plays his own game, keeps things interesting.

What, you're wondering, does this have to do with sports? On his Web site, Tiger Woods was asked about winning the Grand Slam this year.

"It's easily within reason," he said.

Two of ESPN's golf guys went to town analyzing the hell out of that sentence. Thus is the power of Tiger Woods. The guy hasn't played a tournament yet, and won't for a couple of more weeks. The Masters isn't until April.

I wonder if Tiger just throws something like that out there for fun, to see what people do with it. If people are going to put so much effort into figuring out what each word might mean, and if all you do is play golf for a living, wouldn't you have to play with those people? It'd be kind of fun.

All that said, Tiger Woods should feel like winning the Grand Slam is "easily within reason."